


Echoes and Shadows

by stardropdream



Category: X/1999, xxxHoLic
Genre: Gen, Implied Relationships
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-01-13
Updated: 2013-01-13
Packaged: 2017-11-25 09:51:19
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,662
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/637637
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/stardropdream/pseuds/stardropdream
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>When a world is unbalanced, it is Yuuko's job to visit that world. It is Fuuma's job to knock that world into an imbalance.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Echoes and Shadows

**Author's Note:**

> Originally posted on LJ January 11, 2009.

She did not often leave her shop. It was not because she didn’t think Watanuki, Maru and Moro, and Mokona could look after the store in her absence, or that she was concerned she would lose a customer (if a customer came to the store while she was gone, that was the way it was), or even because she would miss out on another one of Watanuki’s meals. No, Yuuko often stayed in her shop in preparation for that day fast approaching. But as it was required for her to leave the shop from time to time for business, so too was it required of her to go to an entirely different dimension. The magic curled around her and she touched down to a deserted street, crumbled buildings fallen around her. It was strangely silent in the city.

She stood, because she knew he would find her eventually. She focused on her wish to see him, knowing he would listen, as was his fate.

Sure enough, soon a figure was jumping down from the top of a crumbled building, hands in his pockets, his shoes making no noise as he touched down to the road in front of her. “Hello.”

“Hello, Kamui,” Yuuko greeted, hands folded primly in front of her, the wind lapping at the black folds of her dimension dress. The boy—a man, perhaps, in a boy’s body, only seventeen—smiled at her, and it was an achingly familiar smile that Yuuko did not like to dwell on.

“You wished to see me, so I came,” he said, regarding her over the tops of blood red sunglasses.

“So I did,” Yuuko agreed. “I’ve come here to survey this world, for now. Seeing as you are one of the parties responsible for the state of this world’s affairs, I decided it would be most economical to speak with you.”

“You won’t get the answers you’re looking for from ‘Kamui’,” this Kamui agreed, in reference to his twin star.

“No, his heart is in too much turmoil.”

“I know.”

“I would like a drink,” Yuuko decided. She jutted her hip to one side. “I trust you know of an appropriate place.”

 

\---

 

The bar was eerily silent, much like the city itself. Perhaps it was because they both wished for the solitude, or perhaps because Kamui—Fuuma—had done enough damage to keep people in their homes, or out of the city itself. The bartender gave Yuuko her drink before muttering some excuse about having things to do in the back. He slid behind a door and did not appear again.

Yuuko drank for a long while, saying nothing.

“Undoubtedly you know who I am.”

“Hm,” he said absently, and whether it was agreement or disagreement was almost undetectable. He leaned back against the bar, facing out towards where patrons would be playing pool and socializing. Instead he stared out a barren room, empty, dusty, and pathetic. “You are the Witch of Dimensions.”

“I have many names.”

“Names are important things,” Fuuma agreed, lips quirked into an almost smile. It was almost as if he was talking to someone else, but Yuuko was used to such behavior. She merely smiled at her sake dish and drank more.

“Your name, the name you share with your twin star, may be the most important name of all,” Yuuko murmured before tipping her head back and drinking the last drops from her drink. She lowered it from her lips and poured more.

“A wise observation.”

“It is my business to know such things.”

“I know about the presence of other worlds,” Fuuma said benignly, looking at the Witch of Dimensions. “People wish for it all the time.”

“That is not a wish you have the power to grant,” Yuuko murmured.

“The world I send them to is not necessarily the one they wished to go to,” he agreed.

“You sound certain there is an afterlife,” Yuuko said cryptically.

Fuuma’s smile was just as cryptic. “I guess I’ll find out for myself sooner or later.”

“Hm.”

“Either way, I’ll be dead,” Fuuma said, deceptively cheerful. “Whether the rest of humanity is dead with me remains to be seen. The way things are, yes.”

“Things are moving according to hitsuzen,” Yuuko agreed. “But not everything is foreordained… and there are things that can be changed.”

“You sound like Kotori,” Fuuma said, and whether his tone was fond or not was too difficult to determine. He watched the wall absently, golden eyes hooded.

“The reason I have come here,” Yuuko said without preamble, or perhaps with a preamble that was left unseen, setting down her sake dish and turning to face the dragon of earth. Her red eyes surveyed him, her face betraying no emotion. In turn, he smiled back at her, tilting his head in just a way that reminded her too much of someone else. “Is the matter of the wishes.”

“Ah.”

“Everything in this world has a price,” Yuuko said calmly, well aware that Fuuma knew such things. “The only thing that has no cost is the gift of feelings.”

“Indeed.”

“You have been fated to grant the wishes of others,” Yuuko continued, staring at him levelly.

“So I have.”

Yuuko was silent, watching him.

Fuuma watched her back, silently, smiling.

“This has never been my choice, Dimension Wish,” the wish giver murmured. “I am merely ‘Kamui’s’ shadow. Why do you come to me?”

“You give the wishes for nothing in return.”

“I do.”

“The world tips towards imbalance because of it,” Yuuko stated.

“I am aware of the effect I am having on this world,” Fuuma said. He shrugged one shoulder. “It is my destiny to destroy humanity.”

“By granting the wishes of others without a price, you take the price onto yourself.” Yuuko betrayed nothing on her face as she said, very quietly, “That will eventually destroy you, and the one in your heart. Regardless of the state of humanity.”

Fuuma laughed. “The one in my heart?”

Yuuko said nothing.

Fuuma looked up at the ceiling, his face indescribable. They sat in silence for a long moment, Yuuko knowing to wait, Fuuma thinking. They betrayed nothing on their faces. They sat in silence, unmoving, for so long, it was as if they’d frozen into stone, statues.

“Yes, the one in your heart,” Yuuko said at last as something flickered in Fuuma’s heart. “The only one who can grant your wish.”

“The Dimension Witch knows many things.”

“As does Kamui,” Yuuko agreed, a knowing smile curling across her face. Done with her sake, she pulled her pipe from her sleeve and lit it. The flame from the match flickered in the dusty bar, and the small waver of smoke curled around her head and across Fuuma’s eyes as it drifted up towards the ceiling.

“And who will grant your wish?” Fuuma asked, watching her from the corner of his eye. She did not waver as she inhaled the smoke from the tobacco. “I cannot.”

“I did not come here for you to grant my wish.”

“I did not think you had.”

“This world is unbalanced, because of the approach of the promised day. The scales have tipped in your favor. Your heart does not blind you from what must be seen, like the other Kamui.” She paused, watching him still. “But… the future is not yet decided.”

A strange smile appeared on Fuuma’s lips. He tipped his head back, closing his eyes. He let out what would have been a sigh on anyone else, and the smallest laugh, lacking in any mirth. “The Dimension Witch really does sound like Kotori.”

“The way the promise day approaches, what you have seen will not change,” Yuuko continued as if Fuuma had not spoken. “It is very hard to change the future.” She blew out a wave of smoke. “But it is possible.”

“Perhaps.”

“Will your wish be granted?”

“That… is irrelevant.”

“There is nothing irrelevant about a wish.”

“The future will come to pass. Until then, it is my fate to grant the wishes of others.”

“Is that so?”

Fuuma was quiet for a moment and then seemingly decided to change the subject. “Only Kamui can grant my wish, but he won’t.”

“… Is that so?”

“In this world, in any world, people see what they want to see. Whether it is the truth or not, it does not matter. What ‘Kamui’ sees is what he wants to see. There is no one in this world who sees what is actually there.” He laughed that same mirthless smile. “There is no one who sees me.”

“Ah.”

“Even to the Witch of Dimensions,” Fuuma said, smiling at her that familiar smile once again. “To her, I look like someone else as well, don’t I?”

Yuuko smiled sadly back. “This was not the fate you chose.”

“I did not choose my fate. It has always been in ‘Kamui’s’ hands.” Fuuma’s smile almost looked deadly, razor sharp. “And yet he does not realize that.”

“You killed your sister, someone precious to him.”

“It was her wish.”

“So it was.”

“She was precious to me as well. But if it was her wish to die, I would be the one to do it, no one else.”

“A protective brother.”

“Perhaps. In the end, it doesn’t matter. The dead do not come back to life. That is a wish I cannot grant to anyone.”

“The price for such a wish is too great.”

Something rumbled in the distance. The two in the bar looked up and looked towards the wall. Beyond that wall was a city. Beyond that city was a world singing, crying, begging for a change. Fuuma closed his eyes, listening to the hum of that desperate wish. Yuuko closed her eyes and exhaled a cloud of smoke.

“This world wishes for a change. I will be the one to grant it.”

“If that is your wish.”

The corners of Fuuma’s eyes crinkled when he laughed. “That is my fate.”


End file.
